Starting on a Water Chiller

[VisEtVirtus]

Just got a 12000BTU A/C unit from my grandparents for free! :D ;)
I will post pics of everything as I go along. :D

Anyone know what kind of temps I will see when I get it all setup?

[magick_man]

off topic, what are your grandparents doing with a 12000 btu ac in COLORADO
it is already cold.
:)

~Magick_Man~

[VisEtVirtus]

Well, they originally lived in Louisiana, that might have something to do with it. And have you ever been to Colorado? It can get pretty friggin hot here too.


It has R22 in it, isn't that refrigerant dangerous?

[VisEtVirtus]

Ok, just got the cover off, and posting the first pics.

Could someone tell me if the Copper pipes are going to be hard to work with? They seem kind of in inconvenient places, and may be hard to bend to what I want.

Copper pipes (http://www.angelfire.com/creep/monkco/DSCF0112.JPG)

Guess this really wasnt all that important (http://www.angelfire.com/creep/monkco/DSCF0113.JPG)

Specs on the A/C unit (http://www.angelfire.com/creep/monkco/DSCF0116.JPG)

[magick_man]

all i'm getting is an "image hosted by angelfire"
and no pics :(
for the pics try tinypic.com, it is free and no registration. (i use it)
no i dont believe that it is anymore dangerous that 134a
i think it cools better though.
and yeah the pipes are probably going to be a pain, just make sure that you dont kink the pipe that would be bad
you might need to create a custom evap(or whatever it is called)instead of using the one that is on there already.

~Magick_Man~

[VisEtVirtus]

Just copy and paste in the browser and they should work then.

I have a pipe bender so I hopefully wont get any kinks.

[matttheniceguy]

You probably aren't going to want to make a custom evaporator. That would involve degassing the system, designing, building and installing an evaporator, and then regassing the system. If you are going to go through all this, you may as well make it a direct die evaporator. The best thing about making a water chiller from an AC unit is that you can build something with excelent perfromance without having to seriously modify the phase change system.

You should be able to bend the pipes enough to do what you need, just make sure you take your time and are carefull not to stress the conections of the pipes, as these are weak points.

[Ad Rock]

12,000 BTU's is a monster A/C unit :eek: . I know a 5200 BTU unit can get the liquid mixture down to about -25c. This is just a guess but I bet you could reach -40c with that huge A/C unit. Its gonna suck a lot of power to operate though :(.

[VisEtVirtus]

I think it will get the same temps as a 5200BTU, It will just get those temperatures faster.

I would've posted pics on temps by now but the rock solid design on this damn thing is preventing me from getting the fan off, lol.
They put everything in such inconvenient places that I cant get anything off. Well, I can, it will just take some creativity and a lot of work.

[gouda96]

It is realy tough to guess temps. The in air temps also mean nothing. It will probably get similar temps to a 5200 btu unit, but pull down faster. You should release some of the r22 because it will be over charged for water chilling.

Your pics don't seem to be working, so how big is your evap? If it is small enough, you should try to get it bent into one of those rubber-maid slim coolers. I couldn't use the slim cooler because my eheim 1060 was too big. What pump are you planning on using? The danner mag5 seems to be perfect for it though.

[VisEtVirtus]

I already have a cooler set aside for this, I dont think it would fit into one of those slim coolers anyways.

I got the fan on the evap off and turned it on, frost formed in a little over a minute. I think I will get better results when I hook a more powerful fan up to the condensor.

I was planning on to release some of the refrigerant, but right now im kind of strapped for cash so I can't buy any equipment. I guess I will have to buy a heavier pump for this eh? Don't know what kind of pump I will buy, I will more into it after I get some money flow back to computer parts. I'm saving up to buy a nice classic mustang and definately won't deviate from that. :D

[gouda96]

All you need to release the refrigerant is a piercing valve I think.

[Lotec25]

Yea all you need is a piercing valve. You can get them at your local hardware store there around 5 dollars.

Lotec25

[VisEtVirtus]

I knew what I needed, I just didn't know how much it would cost me. I will go buy one then, thnx.

[gouda96]

I knew what I needed, I just didn't know how much it would cost me. I will go buy one then, thnx.

Let me know how that goes, cuz I wanna do the same.

[VisEtVirtus]

Ok, will do. Hopefully I will get my lazy butt over to home depot to buy some stuff this weekend.

[VisEtVirtus]

Wait, is there a specific place I should put the piercing valve? I thought I read somewhere that I had to put it on a specific spot before I started releasing some of the refrigerant.

To find the perfect spot for the A/C unit I just need to wait for the temps to drop their lowest, and then release the refrigerant a little bit at a time until the temps stop dropping, correct?

[Lotec25]

the valve does need to be on the right line. It needs to be on the low side. When it gets to the lowest temp possible then you release some of the freon see if it gets colder then a little more so on so forth. When the temps dont go no lower after takeing some freon out it is good. Something else you can try is piniching the cap tube.

Lotec25

Freeze it!

[VisEtVirtus]

Low side??? :confused:

[gouda96]

Gary told me to put it on the suction line...not sure where that is though :D

He said to release a little, wait 15 minutes and see the affect, and continue repeating this until the temps stop decreasing. You also want to do that on the max heat load it will be under.

Is the suction line the part that gets covered in ice, or is that the high side?

[Zork]

The suction line is the line between the evaporator (the thing that gets cold) and the compressor. Usually this line will be cold if not have ice on it. Make sure you do tweak the charge while the system is under your max load, I say this because you can achieve incredibly lower temps with very little refrigerant in the system but as soon as you put a load on it your temps will sky rocket, so tweaking the unit without a load will only make thing worse. Oh and the reason it is called low side/high side is because the pressure inside the system. The evap,accumulator, and the return line are considered the low side and the condensor(the thing that gets warm), liquid line, drier, and cap tube are considered the high side. I would not recommend place a peircing valve on the high side because after time it will probably leak. One more thing to note, by placing the valve on the low side, most these systems run in vacumm on the low side so if you open the valve while the compressor is on it will probably suck in air, wich is a bad bad thing in these systems. You should turn the compressor off and give it a few minutes for the pressure to equilize inside so then you can let some of it out, instead of it sucking in.

[VisEtVirtus]

Thanks for clearing that up, and I didn't know about the max load part. Guess I will have to wait until I get everything setup to use the piercing valve.